Smokers of traditional tobacco products, for example, cigarettes, cigars and pipes, are finding that their use of these products has been significantly and seriously curtailed by smoking regulations passed and enacted due to concerns about the public health dangers of second hand smoke, and potentially harmful chemicals found in the smoke, including tar and carbon monoxide.
In addition to traditional tobacco alternatives to those that must be ignited, cigarettes, cigars ad pipes, like snuff, snus, chewing tobacco, tobacco tablets, tobacco lozenges and tobacco strips, smokers recently have also be utilizing electronic nicotine delivery devices or e-cigarettes.
These products vaporize nicotine, allowing a smoker to inhale a nicotine-infused vapor in a manner similar to smoking.
However, nicotine is just one constituent of tobacco that provides satisfaction to smokers. There are a number of others—actual tobacco flavor, aroma, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (“MAOIs”) are naturally found in tobacco and naturally occur in tobacco smoke. These naturally occurring tobacco constituents are also used in anti-depressants and are widely acknowledged to be mood elevators.
While there have been inventions that teach as to using actual leaf tobacco in certain combinations that then vaporize the constituents without ignition, they combine tobacco in certain and specific forms with solutions that require heating to a temperature range of at least 200 degrees C.
As used in this application, a “first solution” is a solution prior to its contact with tobacco to form a “tobacco solution.” In some circumstances, a first solution may have had previous tobacco contact, but will eventually have subsequent tobacco contact to form a “tobacco solution.”
Vaporization at 200 degrees C. represents a relatively low temperature compared to other current e-cigarettes, but there are compelling reasons for seeking first solutions and other solutions that vaporize at much lower temperatures. These reasons include a) minimizing power needs to reach temperatures of less than 200 degrees C., allowing for safer and more efficiently powered devices; and, b) using first solutions comprised of smaller molecules, allowing for deeper lung penetration upon inhalation and more efficacious absorption of the tobacco constituents, which, in turn, will allow for more efficient use of tobacco and its constituents—which would be beneficial and desirable should governmental authorities determine that e-cigarettes need to be limited with respect to the volume of tobacco or the density of nicotine and/or other constituents provided in a commercially-available product/device. Those potential limitations notwithstanding, low temperature vaporization of tobacco formulations using first solutions with smaller molecules than currently being utilized and vaporization points well under 200 degrees C. will prove to be more effective and efficacious with respect to providing a safer alternative to the public health risks associated with traditional tobacco products intended to be ignited and smoked.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a more effective and safer tobacco delivery mechanism and method of use that provides for vaporization at temperatures well under 200 degrees C. and, ideally, at no more than 100 degrees C.